In my last column of 2024 for the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’m in the mood for traditional Christmas decorations.
It’s the time of year when sentimental souls start dreaming of a white Christmas, but this festive season I’m focusing on a different colour: green. I’m even drafting this column in green ink.
Green has been the predominant colour of midwinter festivals since pre-Christian times. It’s not just to celebrate Christmas that people have been keen to “deck the halls with boughs of holly” and any evergreens to hand.
Whatever your faith, during the northern hemisphere’s dark winter, bringing evergreens indoors reassures us of the coming of spring, light, and renewed life. That’s a sustaining thought whenever the winter is throwing its worst weather at us.
The Japanese have a word for reaping the benefits of surrounding yourself in greenery. Shinrin-yoku, which translates as “forest bathing”, is all very well if you’re able to get out into a forest. But research proves it’s also uplifting to bring the forest into your home or workplace.
Indoor greenery is thought to:
- improve air quality
- reduce stress
- increase concentration and productivity
- reduce ambient noise
- promote a general sense of well-being
Introducing these benefits to your home this December can only make your Christmas happier.
Even if you can’t keep house plants alive for five minutes, evergreen branches should stay fresh and keep their colour for at least the twelve days of Christmas. (See Classic FM’s fun post about the meaning of that centuries-old song’s lyrics here .)
Can’t bear harvesting greenery from your garden? Allergic to its distinctive fragrance? Don’t worry. There’s evidence that fake plants offer some of the same benefits.
Worried about the environmental impact of fake plants? BBC Radio 4’s programme Sliced Bread reported on 30th November 2023 (episode still available on BBC Sounds here) that an artificial Christmas tree can be just as environmentally friendly as a real one, provided you reuse it for many years. For maximum benefit, just make sure (to misquote Henry Ford) that your fake tree is any colour you like, as long as it’s green.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas – and an early arrival of spring!
IN OTHER NEWS
I’m delighted to report that my latest novel, Death at the Old Curiosity Shop, is doing well, with over 200 ratings and reviews on Amazon so far, and ranking relatively high in the UK ebook charts. It’s also available in paperback, hardback and audiobook – and you can order it from any bookshop, including high street stores.
The sequel, Death at the Village Chess Club, will be published on 3rd March, and you can already pre-order it in ebook, paperback and hardback. (The audiobook can be ordered from 3rd March onwards.)I’m just checking the proofs before my publisher sends it off for production.
My first task of the new year will be to write the third in the series (as yet untitled). My publisher, Boldwood Books, gave me a sneak preview of the cover for the second book, which I’ll share with you as soon as it’s official.
And with my other hand, I’ve been invited to write a Murder Mystery play for the Hawkesbury Drama Group – my first stab at playwriting since I was a child, although I’ve been in quite a few amateur theatre productions since then, including a few Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. You may have already spotted my interest in local amateur dramatics in my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries. In the first in the series, Best Murder in Show, a member of the Wendlebury Players is a murder victim, and in the third book, Murder in the Manger, Sophie is persuaded to write a Nativity play for the village school – with unexpected consquences!
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